r, and a few who still
girt in the lawyer as the prince of the small jest, discharged their
witticisms upon the staggering condition of affairs; not forgetting in
their assaults the disputatious civilian himself. That worthy, we regret
to add, though still unwilling to yield, and still striving to retort,
had nevertheless suffered considerable loss of equilibrium. His speeches
were more than ever confused, and it was remarked that his eyes danced
about hazily, with a most ineffectual expression. He looked about,
however, with a stupid gaze of self-satisfaction; but his laugh and
language, forming a strange and most unseemly coalition, degenerated at
last into a dolorous sniffle, indicating the rapid departure of the few
mental and animal holdfasts which had lingered with him so long. While
thus reduced, his few surviving senses were at once called into acute
activity by the appearance of a sooty little negro, who thrust into his
hands a misshapen fold of dirty paper, which a near examination made out
to take the form of a letter.

"Why, what the d----l, d----d sort of fist is this you've given me, you
bird of blackness! where got you this vile scrawl?--faugh! you've had it
in your jaws, you raven, have you not?"

The terrified urchin retreated a few paces while answering the inquiry.

"No, mass lawyer--de pedler--da him gib um to me so. I bring um straight
as he gib um."

"The pedler! why, where is he?--what the devil can he have to write
about?" was the universal exclamation.

"The pedler!" said the lawyer, and his sobriety grew strengthened at the
thought of business; he called to the waiter and whispered in his ears--

"Hark ye, cuffee; go bring out the pedler's horse, saddle him with my
saddle which lies in the gallery, bring him to the tree, and, look ye,
make no noise about it, you scoundrel, as you value your ears."

Cuffee was gone on his mission--and the whole assembly aroused by the
name of the pedler and the mysterious influence of the communication
upon the lawyer, gathered, with inquiries of impatience, around him.
Finding him slow, they clamored for the contents of the epistle, and the
route of the writer--neither of which did he seem desirous to
communicate. His evasions and unwillingness were all in vain, and he was
at length compelled to undertake the perusal of the scrawl; a task he
would most gladly have avoided in their presence. He was in doubt and
fear. What could the pedler have to communic